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Point of View

Handcuffs and Key

When you write a story, you need to choose a point of view. Who will be telling the story? Will it be one of your characters? Will it be you, the author?

Who you choose can change the story. Let’s say you want to tell a story about a bank robbery. Major characters may include the robbers, the hostages inside the bank, and the police officers on the scene. If you choose one of the robbers, the story may consist of adventure, planning the heist, danger, a falling out between partners, and lack of trust.

If the story is told through the eyes of one of the hostages, it becomes one of bewilderment and fear. Do they hope to escape? Maybe several band together to stand up to the robbers or maybe they learn their lesson when one gets injured for doing something foolish and they await rescue.

If a detective on the case is the one who relates the story, it becomes a procedural… we get treated to the protocols of the case, talking down the robbers, negotiating for the release of the hostages, the stress when one is shot.

As you can see, each angle tells a different tale, although the main story remains the same. If you have a large cast of characters in your book, use as few points of view as possible to tell the story. Figure out the least amount you need to adequately cover the story and any internal dialogues you need in your story. Having too many can get confusing, not only for the reader, but for you. Now you must decide between first person, third person, omniscient, or those rarely used second person, plural first, plural third, and epistolary forms.

Over the next several posts, I’ll be covering some of these various forms of point of view, including the pros and cons of choosing them, as well as what pitfalls to watch out for when you use them.